Dear Old Friends Bob and Eunice Stack Throw a Spanish-Style Goodbye Wingding after Their Umpteenth Summer Stay in Güéjar Sierra

Güéjar Sierra, August 20, 2018–Monday lunchtime in the Restaurante La Hacilla and a long table of friends is assembled to eat lunch, laugh together and bid goodbye to old friends and regular summer visitors for the past 45 years, Bob and Eunice Stack, who head back to New York with their family on Wednesday. It’s always great to spend time with Bob and Eunice and enjoy their flawless hospitality. They are the best–and best loved–people we know, real role models for growing old gracefully. Thanks for a lovely lunch dear friends.

Here are the photos. Click on one to enlarge them. Then right click the enlargement to download it.

Like this:

Virtually Lost to Art Since Her Art School Days, Sarah Initiates a Welcome Return

Sarah Jarvis studied painting and textiles (Chelsea School of Art) and then lived in the business world all her working life. Though, it’s not as if locating, gutting and renovating, equipping and running an Andalusian farmhouse hotel with her husband, Matt, since 2014 isn’t work. Still, the yearning for art in her life never left her. Her dream was to convert one of the rooms in their country house into a printmaking studio. But there were so many questions pending. It had been a long time. Was she capable of making her plan work?

At this point she discovered Maureen on the web. “I just googled ‘Printmaking Spain’ and there she was,” says Sarah, who showed up at the studio a few days later. After looking over some of Sarah’s sketches, Maureen suggested that Sarah base her first prints on some animal drawings she had done a few years ago and showed her how to prepare the images on acetates in order to create solar-plate prints.

The first print was a sign of things to come. It was crisp, bold and arresting, with a graphic quality that a lot of printmakers strive a long time to achieve. By the time she went home Sarah had a stack of prints. When Maureen said to her, “You’ve got the beginning of an exhibit there,” Sarah’s eyes lit up. She was on her way.

Asked to discuss her experience in the studio with Maureen, Sarah said, “It was amazing, actually. Maureen has allowed me to feel that I could become an artist. She’s given me the necessary confidence. She doesn’t train people to be like her. She looks for the best in each person. Also, the setting here is so inspiring, from the mountains, the grapevines and the flowers, to the Gallinero (henhouse) artists cabin. It’s all so idyllic.”

Sarah’s parting comment says it all: “I’m going to create a studio of my own. Now I’m convinced I can do it.”

“Three days with Maureen helped me find my former artistic self.”

Kate MacKinnon is one of those unusual people who thrive on learning and never stop. She just spent three days in the studio with Maureen and got stuck into a new challenge: printmaking. As with everything else, she’s serious about it.

Kate graduated with a degree in psychology from Hobart William Smith Colleges, a great little liberal arts school in upstate New York, then hitchhiked around Europe for four months before going to work in 1989 for Chase Manhattan Bank–which later became part of JP Morgan Chase–and stayed there until 2017 when she took an early retirement.

She seemingly came out of that experience unscathed. She’s not the least bit “bankish;” in fact she’s eminently normal. So how did she manage it? “I always worked in technology,” she says, “and I was surrounded by intelligent people. I learned on the job, from them. I had some people skills.” Kate underrates herself. Her people skills are such that she could swim in shark-infested waters if she had to.

Asked what she discovered working with Maureen she replies, “I discovered how much she knows about printmaking and, just as important as that, how willing she is to share her knowledge. Time spent with Maureen in the studio one-on-one not only teaches you printmaking. She also conveys some rich lifestyle wisdom. Some of it’s Spanish, some of it’s of her own creation. She’s living every artist’s dream.”

“One of the great things about working with Maureen is the accommodation. It’s a cabin built into a mountainside with great comfort, workspace, privacy and views. I slept well the first night and on the second day started taking siestas. And there’s an added attraction. It’s just 40 steps–I counted them.–from the studio.”